LAHORE: The Punjab Home Department has allowed the convicted criminals to avail the facility of recently established “family homes” under which they would be entitled to spend three days after a gap of three months with their spouses and kids.

According to the information, only convicted prisoners or their wives would move an application of meeting their spouses or children, below the age of five years, to the concerned deputy commissioner and after the verification of their ‘Nikah Namas’ (marriage certificates) they would be allowed to avail the family home facility.

A senior official while talking to Business Recorder said that the convicts would be allowed to meet their families for three days after a gap of three months. While hailing the decision as a step towards the jail reforms, the official said it would help them in improving the atmosphere in prisons and rehabilitation of the convicts.

He said the home department in 2010 had started construction of the family homes inside prisons across the province.

However, due to shortage of funds and alleged apathy of the senior bureaucrats only three family homes each in Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan could be set up in more than a decade, the official concluded.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021